{"id":265983,"date":"2015-06-17T17:39:57","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T13:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=265983"},"modified":"2015-06-17T17:43:34","modified_gmt":"2015-06-17T13:43:34","slug":"bill-to-deliver-possession-of-dilijan-to-russian-businessman-tax-incentives-to-non-existent-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2015\/06\/17\/bill-to-deliver-possession-of-dilijan-to-russian-businessman-tax-incentives-to-non-existent-investors.html","title":{"rendered":"Bill to &#8220;Deliver Possession of Dilijan&#8221; to Russian Businessman; Tax Incentives to Non-Existent Investors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The RA Government proposes to adopt a development and investment bill for the Armenian town of Dilijan and surrounding areas, which would allow income tax exemption and other tax incentives for foreign investment companies operating in the area.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The draft was presented at the National Assembly on Wednesday, June 17, by Vache Terteryan, RA Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations. Among other benefits, Terteryan said, the bill proposes to exempt foreign investors&#39; import from value added tax (VAT).&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The Deputy Minister explained they plan to provide tax exemptions and incentives to currently non-existent businesses.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">&ldquo;In other words, we expect that these incentives will promote interest,&rdquo; Terteryan said.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Naira Zohrabyan, head of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party parliamentary faction, reminded the Deputy Minister that &ldquo;we&#39;ve had illusions about possible investments in the past, too.&rdquo;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">&ldquo;To turn Gyumri into a cultural center; turn Jermuk into something else; to make goat cheese a brand equivalent to Chanel. What if we allow incentives, and there are no investments? Who&#39;s going to be responsible for these investments?&rdquo; Zohrabyan said.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">In Jermuk and Gyumri, Terteryan responded, development works are underway, and they have high expectations for Dilijan.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Opposition Armenian National Congress MP Nikol Pashinyan, in turn, said the bill was illegal. This foreign investor, he added, was most likely going to be Russian businessman Ruben Vardanyan.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">&ldquo;This is a bill to deliver possession of Dilijan to Ruben Vardanyan. I have great respect for the intellectual projects he implements, but for me, [this bill] is the continuation of the same phenomenon: let&rsquo;s give Syunik province to [governor] Surik Khachatryan; Artashat &ndash; to [RA Prime Minister] Hovik Abrahamyan and his family; Malatia Sebastia [administrative district] to [oligarch] Samvel Aleksanyan; Abovyan &ndash; to [businessman] Gagik Tsarukyan. The government has brought a bill contradictory to the state system,&rdquo; the oppositionist said.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Note, Russian businessman of Armenian descent Ruben Vardanyan is the founder of The United World College Dilijan (Dilijan International School).&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<em>Pictured &ndash; RA President Serzh Sargsyan and Ruben Vardanyan on the territory of the school<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The draft was presented at the National Assembly on Wednesday, June 17, by Vache Terteryan, RA Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations. Among other benefits, Terteryan&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":265975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}